The Holy Scripture - english version B.indd - Sabbat

John's Foreview of Romanism.365depending weight on flesh-cutting cords, yet they struck me on the face withcudgels to abate and cease the thundering noise of my wrestling voice. At last,being released from these pinnacles of pain, I was handfast set on the floorwith this their ceaseless imploration : ' Confess, confess, confess in time, or youinevitable torments ensue.' Where, finding nothing from me but still innocent, -' Oh ! I am innocent. O Jesus, the Lamb of God, have mercy onme, and strengthen me with patience to undergo thisbarbarous murder - ' "Enough ! Here let the curtain drop. I should sicken you were I to pursue thesubject further ; it is too horrible, too damnable.Here in this paper I have some of the ashes of the martyrs, some of theirburned bones. I have bits of rusted iron and melted lead which I took myselfwith these hands from the Quemadero in Madrid, the place where they burnedthe martyrs, not far from the Inquisition. It was in the year 1870 that I visitedit, just before the great œcumenical council was held at Rome, by which thepope was proclaimed infallible. I was in Spain that spring, andvisited the newly opened Quemadero. I saw the ashes from that spot, which arenow lying upon this table.Here me, though in truth I scarcely know how to speak upon this subject.I am almost dumb with horror when I think of it. I have visited the places inSpain, in France, in Italy most deeply stained and dyed with martyr-blood. Ihave visited the valleys of Piedmont. I have stood in the shadow of the greatcathedral of Seville, on the spot where they burned the martyrs, or tore themlimb from limb. I have stood beast-deep in the ashes of the martyrs of Madrid.I have read the story of Rome's deeds. I have waded through many volumes ofhistory and of martyrology. I have visited, either in travel or in thought, scenestoo numerous for me to name, where the saints of God have beenslaughtered by Papal Rome, that great butcher of bodies and souls. Icannot tell you what I have seen, what I have read, what I have thought. I cannottell you what I feel. Oh, it is a bloody tale ! I have stood in that valley of Lucernawhere dwelt the faithful Waldenses, those ancient Protestants who held to thepure gospel all through the dark ages, that lovely valley with its pineclad slopeswhich Rome converted into a slaughter-house. Oh, horriblemassacres of tender women and helpless children ! Yes ; you hated them, youhunted them, you trapped them, you tortured them, you stabbed them, you stuckthem on spits, you impaled them, you hanged them, you roasted them, you flayedthem, you cut them in pieces, you violated them, you violated the women, youviolated the children, you forced flints into them, and stakes, and stuffed themwith gunpowder, and blew them up, and tore them asunder limb from limb, andtossed them over precipices, and dashed them against the rocks ; you cut them upalive, you dismembered them ; you racked, mutilated, burned, tortured mangled,massacred holy men, sainted women, mothers, daughters, tender children,harmless babes, hundreds, thousands, thousands upon thousands ; you sacrificedthem in heaps, in hecatombs, turning all Spain, Italy, France, Europe, ChristianEurope, into a slaughter-house, a charnel house, an Akeldama. Oh, horrible tothink off ! The sight dims, the heart sickens, the soul is stunned in the presence